Asghar Zarean, a senior official in charge of nuclear security at
the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Saturday that
Tehran’s domestic intelligence agencies uncovered a number of
plots over the past few months.

“Several cases of industrial sabotage have been neutralized
in the past few months before achieving the intended damage,
including sabotage at a part of the IR-40 facility at Arak,”
the organization said, according to the semi-official Fars news
agency.

The Arak heavy water reactor was part of deal cut last November
between Iran and the six world powers. Tehran agreed to halt its
construction and limit Uranium enrichment to 20 percent in return
for limited sanctions relief.

There was no mention of the nature of the attacks, or their
suspected initiators. The announcement however coincided with the
launch of a new domestic intelligence team to fight cyber-attacks
and industrial sabotage.

“This specialized lab has been launched to identify, prevent
and fight threats including modern software viruses,” Zarean
said.

Another facility central to Iran’s nuclear program, the uranium
enrichment plant in Natanz, was targeted by the Stuxnet virus in
2010. The computer virus temporarily disabled the centrifuges,
which are used to enrich uranium.

Tehran has repeatedly blamed Israel, the US and their allies
saying they are behind sabotage programs to undermine its nuclear
program.

Some Iranian officials have even suggested that European
companies may have deliberately sold them faulty equipment with
the full knowledge of US intelligence as their own governments,
since such a tactic would harm rather than help the country’s
nuclear program.

As well as attacks on its nuclear infrastructure, Iran has
reported its oil facilities being disabled by computer viruses;
in 2012 all internet connections between the oil ministry, oil
rigs and a major export facility were knocked out.

The West fears the Arak reactor could be used to create plutonium
as an alternative for a covert nuclear weapons program, if it is
unable to produce enough enriched uranium. Iran denies any such
aims and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful
purposes only.